This Day in History

 In 1969, Capt. Ed Dankworth of the "State Police" told the Alaska Press Club that Valdez was in danger of being taken over by criminal money. "I've got two troopers, a corporal and a little country telephone for a district of 52,000 people," said Dankworth.

 In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson supported a firm stand against the Japanese in North Pacific Fisheries Treaty negotiations. The Japanese were accused by the U.S. of netting large numbers of immature North American salmon to the detriment of the fishery.

 In 1971, in the worst singleplane accident in the history of American aviation at that time, an Alaska Airlines 727 jet crashed 1,000 feet below the summit of a 3,500-foot mountain 21 miles west of Juneau.

In the nation

 In 1781, Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers.

 In 1888, George Eastman received a patent for his roll-film camera, and registered his trademark: Kodak.

 In 1951, President Truman addressed the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in the first live, coast-to-coast television broadcast.

 In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. Ford Motor Co. began selling its ill-fated Edsel.

 In 1967, Michigan Gov. George Romney told a TV interview he'd undergone a "brainwashing" by U.S. officials during a 1965 visit to Vietnam - a comment that apparently damaged Romney's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

 In 1984, Canada's Progressive Conservatives, led by Brian Mulroney, won a landslide victory in general elections over the Liberal Party of Prime Minister John N. Turner.

 In 2001, President Bush opened the door to a future cut in the capital gains tax, but said he first wanted to see the effects of the previous spring's income tax cut. Texas Republican Phil Gramm announced he would leave the U.S. Senate at the end of his third term.

 In 2005, as New Orleans turned much of its attention to gathering the dead in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told CNN thousands of people had died due to the storm and its aftermath.

In the world

 In 1893, English author Beatrix Potter first told the story of Peter Rabbit in the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess.

 In 1944, during World War II, British troops entered Antwerp, Belgium.

 In 1996, anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies of Baghdad, hours after the United States fired a new round of cruise missiles into southern Iraq and destroyed an Iraqi radar site. Whitewater prosecutors had Susan McDougal held in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury whether President Clinton had lied at her trial.